Samsung Galaxy S9+ Review

Trying to decide whether or not to get the latest phone is the tech equivalent of deciding what one designer handbag you plan to wear every day for the next two years. It’s your most frequently toted accessory and one of the biggest investments.

That’s why I never really understood how a decision of such magnitude could be based off limited experience in a controlled environment like a store or based off a review from an editor in an office. So when it came time to test Samsung’s latest releases, the Galaxy S9 and S9+, I brought it to one of the busiest and out of control events of the season: Coachella. Here’s what I found out.

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Jack Wagner

LIVE FOCUS

The live focus features is amazing, especially when you look perfectly ‘chella’d and need to get a shot for the ‘gram. This mode will increase the depth-of-field in the picture. The easy-to-use slider at the bottom of the screen lets you adjust the background blur before or after you take the photo so you can bokeh to your heart’s desire. Use this as your portrait mode so you can be the center of attention.

Jack Wagner

Jack Wagner

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DUAL CAPTURE

What’s also rad about Live Focus is that it lets you capture images using two different cameras at once if you turn on Dual Capture. While the telephoto camera grabs the image of an object close up, the wide-angle camera takes in twice the field of view. When you go to edit, you’ll see an option at the top that says “Close-Up” or “Wide Angle,” making it easy to toggle back and forth when deciding which version you like better.

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Jack Wagner

Jack Wagner

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BIXBY VISION

By far one of the coolest capabilities on the phone, Samsung’s virtual assistant lets you translate foreign text, try on virtual makeup and shop products that it scans in real-time straight from the camera. My inner fashion stalker geeked out when I saw that I could take a photo of a festival go-er’s outfit, focus in on the glasses and tap the shopping button. It pulled up options that looked remarkably similar (guess who bought new shades right then and there). Fun fact: it also scans wine labels and will pull up info like what foods it pairs well with. (I admittedly tested that one out a few too many times, #winechella.)

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HYPERLAPSE

By now, most of us are familiar with this but I have to call it out because I got some of my best (and funniest) content using Hyperlapse. The above video shows my attempt to capture what I thought would be a quick video of a festival flock snapping a few photos. As you’ll see, they went on for a reeeally long time, and despite the fact that I have the attention span of a Snapchat second, it turned out pretty legit-looking. It’s a true testament to the camera’s stabilizing capabilities.

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SUPER SLOW-MO

This new feature has gotten a lot of hype. It records short bursts of video at 960 frames per second (fps) at 1280 x 720 pixels, meaning it can capture some dramatically slow movement (great for fringe flying in the wind or a stampede of people running when Bey takes the stage). But, it does require some practice to figure out just when to use it. One happy surprise came when we were trying to capture the famous Coachella Ferris wheel at night. Because the refresh rate of the light source was slower than the refresh rate on the camera, it created a lighting effect fit for the stage.

Jack Wagner

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PRO MODE

This one is perfect for all my fellow control freaks who want to manually alter things like ISO, focus, white balance and exposure, but you have to know what you’re doing. Play around ahead of time so you know the right adjustments to make when you go to capture stellar shots of fleeting moments like this one of the famed floating helium balloon chain.

HYBRID ZOOM

Unless you get an artist pass and are chilling with SZA, Kygo, The Weeknd and War on Drugs backstage, it’s likely that many of your photos will have to be taken from pretty far back. This phone’s hybrid zoom is insane and let me get high quality photos from really far away (2x optical zoom). I had a blast playing with the dual-aperture system and all the zoom options at the festival when I was covertly snapping shots of fashion moments to remember.

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Speaking of fashion moments, it wouldn’t be Coachella without a million festival-worthy outfits. Here’s 7 looks that were edited in 7 ways using features on the S9+.